Shooting the messenger

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Official Washington is notorious for its tendency to respond to
unwelcome performance assessments by "shooting the messenger." The reaction
to Newt Gingrich's recent, scathing critique of the State Department's
conduct of diplomacy in recent months, however, seems closer to the gruesome
punishment of "drawing and quartering" -- in which the victim's arms and
legs were chained to, and then pulled apart by, four horses.

After the former House Speaker charged last week that the State
Department has been responsible for "six months of diplomatic failure" and
is engaging in "a deliberate and systematic effort to undermine the
President's policies," the most decorous of public repudiations came from
the White House and departmental press spokesmen, who insisted that the
folks in Foggy Bottom are faithfully following the President's direction.

Two of Mr. Gingrich's former colleagues, former Representatives Jack
Kemp and Vin Webber, also roled in, with Mr. Kemp charging that "Although he
aimed at the State Department and Powell's trip to Syria, [Gingrich] did
enormous collateral damage to President George W. Bush both diplomatically
and politically. Ugh!" Presidential political advisor Karl Rove is said to
have privately chewed Newt out and the Speaker has, regrettably, declined
further public comment ever since.

The most outrageous responses, though, have come from officials
appointed by President Bush to top positions in the Department of State.
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage declared that the erstwhile
Speaker of the House of Representatives was "off his meds and out of
therapy." Not to be outdone, Amb. Elizabeth Jones, Assistant Secretary of
State for European and Eurasian affairs told a Portuguese newspaper that
what Gingrich said is "garbage....What Gingrich says does not interest me.
He is an idiot and you can publish that."

Clearly, Mr. Gingrich has struck a nerve. The vitriol being heaped
on him suggests more is in play than mere concern his critique reflects
badly on Secretary of State Colin Powell and even President Bush -- not just
career diplomats like Ms. Jones and her colleagues in the notoriously
Arabist Near East and South Asian Affairs bureau.

The truly offensive ad hominem attacks being mounted on the record
by Bush appointees in the State Department calls to mind the combat
aviators' expression that "If you are not taking anti-aircraft fire, you are
not over the target."

In fact, Newt Gingrich is right on target. It is the worst kept
secret in this town -- or, for that matter, around the world -- that Colin
Powell's State Department profoundly disagrees with President Bush and the
rest of his national security team on most important policy matters. For
many, both in foreign capitals, among the media elite and in Bush-hostile
political circles, this is widely regarded as a very good thing.

The depth of this anti-Bush sentiment was captured in a letter to
the editor published in Monday's Washington Post: "Secretary of State Colin
L. Powell is one of the few voices of reason in this administration, one of
the nation's most respected civil servants, a man of impeccable morals and
judgment, someone who brings legitimacy to the White House, who has saved
that same White House from political disaster on numerous occasions and
without whom this administration would be in even more trouble
diplomatically than it already is. Thank God the State Department does not
agree with the White House and its controversial foreign policy....Thank G-d
for the checks and balances built into our democratic system."

The idea that a President's policies would be stymied not by
opponents in the legislative branch or by due process in an independent
judiciary but by career bureaucrats nominally working for him in the
executive branch was surely not what the Framers had in mind. Yet this
notion animates many in the Foreign Service whose almost caste-like view of
their profession encourages their contempt for political masters with whom
they disagree and, not infrequently, their rank insubordination.

An example where such behavior can have potentially serious
repercussions was reported last Friday by the Reuters news service: On
March 31st, two unnamed State Department officials were told by North Korean
counterparts in a meeting at the UN that Pyongyang had begun to reprocess
spent fuel rods, a step that would provide materials for a number of nuclear
weapons. Reuters' revelation was news to others involved in highly
contentious Bush Administration decision-making about U.S. policy toward the
North. According to Sunday's Washington Post, "Some elements of the State
Department purposely did not report the claim to senior officials in the
Defense Department and the National Security Council in order to avoid
rupturing the Beijing talks before they began."

Now, the folks in Foggy Bottom know that President Bush deeply, and
properly, distrusts the North Korean regime. He has, as a result, been
leery of State Department-promoted efforts to engage in yet-another
fraudulent "peace process" that would legitimate the despotic Kim Jong-Il
and likely allow him to become still more dangerous.

As with other misconduct noted by Speaker Gingrich, Mr. Bush may be
embarrassed to discover that what is nominally his Department of State has
been playing fast and loose with the facts so as to embroil him in precisely
the sort of diplomacy that has not worked in the past vis-à-vis the North
Koreans -- and that Newt has correctly pointed out is being no better
managed by State on the East River or in the Middle East. The President and
those truly loyal to him must recognize, however, that the political costs
of recognizing the validity of the messenger's message today are sure to be
far less than those that will come of ignoring it.